


to disappear among the stars

by crownedmayhem



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Lowercase, M/M, Mutually Unrequited, Post-Break Up, Unhappy Ending, Unrequited Love, star tears disease
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:13:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26143918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownedmayhem/pseuds/crownedmayhem
Summary: if yamaguchi’s freckles are constellations, how many times has he fallen in love for his tears to paint a universe of stars on his cheeks?tsukishima used to know.
Relationships: Tsukishima Kei/Yamaguchi Tadashi
Comments: 8
Kudos: 36
Collections: TsukkiYama Week 2020





	to disappear among the stars

**Author's Note:**

> would you believe me if i said i'd started this at the beginning of august and only just finished it now hhhh  
> but at last it's finally done oof
> 
> written for day 5 of tsukkiyama week 2020, unrequited

tsukishima’s been friends with yamaguchi for as long as he can remember.

it starts some time after he turns ten.

when tsukishima is walking home from school, he meets a boy with teary eyes and fragile skin. he doesn’t think much of him, but he knows that the boys who bully him are infinitely more fragile.

“lame,” he says, without a second thought—the bullies’ antics are lame, and really, he’s only calling it like he sees it. the boys try retaliating, but tsukishima discovers that being tall and imposing has some benefits. it’s a nice side effect, instead of ruining class photos by making them awkward and never fitting into clothes for his age. tsukishima thinks it’s funny how quickly they retreat.

he doesn’t notice how the boy on the ground seems to look at him a little starry-eyed after the incident. why would he? tsukishima’s life doesn’t revolve around him, yet.

it’s only later when they coincidentally meet outside an afterschool club that he finds out who the boy is. his eyes are shiny and somehow, he seems to bestow awe upon every facet of the world, like he’s overflowing with love and appreciation for what simply is. 

tsukishima doesn’t understand, not really. what’s so exciting about the mundane and the ordinary? he gets it when it’s about nice or fun things, like cool shoes or volleyball, but boring stuff is, well, boring.

when the boy turns to him though, and tsukishima sees the amazement in his gaze, he finds that maybe, he likes it. tsukishima doesn’t think much of himself; if he’s honest, he thinks all the coolness went to his brother, and he would say it’s deserved. but the way the boy looks at him like he hung the stars in the sky—well, it’s nice. it’s nice to be looked at like he’s not as dull as the other kids say when they whisper behind him in class and at lunch.

the name he’s given is yamaguchi tadashi.

tsukishima tests it once, twice, and decides it's nice.

(he wonders if he had said it a third time, then, that things would be different now. third time’s the charm—would that have changed things?)

with the years that pass, somehow yamaguchi becomes a fixture in his life. as tsukishima grows an inch or two taller with the months going by, yamaguchi is there, matching him step for step in their way forward.

yamaguchi, with his brightness and pep as he walks; tsukishima, with his slow and steady measured gait.

“where are you going for high school, tsukki?”

yamaguchi is quiet in the sweltering heat. it’s one of many summer nights spent at tsukishima’s house. they visited each other regularly, but all of the heavy questions about their futures and the supposed infinity before them seem to drift back to this: the same place where tsukishima and his older brother used to sit, watching the cicadas.

yamaguchi is different from akiteru. where akiteru would sit languidly, laid back as he counted the stars in the sky, yamaguchi is curled into himself despite his long body and gangly limbs. his eyes are fixed on the moon in the gentle waves of the twilight, tracing the clouds that threaten to smother the brightness. 

tsukishima is reminded of years in the past, when those eyes were full of adoration for the world. he notes that there are still hints and shards, even through the shade that growing up casts. yamaguchi looks peaceful, the soft moon glow highlighting his features.

“karasuno,” tsukishima says. the answer comes easily, breathed into the tranquility of the night.

“thought so,” yamaguchi hums, a small tilt to his lips.

tsukishima doesn’t glance at yamaguchi when he questions: “why ask if you already knew?”

he feels yamaguchi shift towards him more than he sees it from the corner of his eye. the stillness of the air is a settled force on his skin, and yamaguchi’s movements are a tide to rock the boat.

“i just wanted to hear you say it,” he says, like that makes any sense at all. 

somehow, it does.

“what about you?” tsukishima asks after a few beats of silence.

“karasuno,” he says, beatific.

tsukishima turns to see yamaguchi’s light, fairy-like smile, eyes crinkled in crescents. 

they both know, yet they ask anyway.

it makes sense.

tsukishima scoffs and drags his gaze to the ground a few steps away, to look at something that isn’t yamaguchi’s soft expression. 

“copying me?” tsukishima says, and it would be derisive to anyone else. but it’s yamaguchi, and tsukishima knows the moonlight isn’t as dim as he hopes it is. the shadows don’t conceal the warmth that crawls up his cheeks as well as he wishes they would. he knows, too, that yamaguchi has a special ear for the fondness hiding underneath the barbs of his words.

yamaguchi’s laugh is airy and free; a gentle chime dancing in the delicate atmosphere.

when tsukishima thinks of the moon, he doesn’t know what yamaguchi sees. even after all these years of knowing him and growing up beside him, with him, tsukishima still doesn’t understand the easiness in which he admires the universe and existence itself.

tonight, as his eyes flicker over subdued luminance, he admits the moon looks pretty, high above its sea of stars, overshadowing the sky. 

he ignores the thoughts in the back of his head saying yamaguchi sitting next to him is prettier. tsukishima may not fundamentally understand yamaguchi’s love for life, but this—yamaguchi existing in space, freely and comfortably, effortlessly beautiful—he understands.

like this, tsukishima finds it inconceivable that someone wouldn’t be wholly enraptured by yamaguchi.

distantly, he reminisces to when he was younger, hanging out with akiteru, listening to the cicadas for the first time. he remembers wondering what in life could be better than simply being next to his older brother, the coolest guy in the world, watching him light up with happiness. 

yamaguchi sits next to him, breathing softly, and tsukishima thinks he might have found his answer.

the first time he hears ‘star tear disease’, tsukishima thinks his concerns are unfounded.

yamaguchi has been absent from school since last week and tsukishima doesn’t know why. he won’t say he’s worried if asked, but it’s evident in the way his focus is dulled during the day and he messes up more in volleyball practice. he takes down more notes than he ever normally would in lessons just because he knows yamaguchi will appreciate them when he comes back.

it’s monday and yamaguchi still isn’t in school despite going home on tuesday last week. he’s missed a scarily high amount of practices, even though tsukishima knows yamaguchi has more investment in the sport than he ever will. his best friend has never had this many days off school in a row and he’s never been off without telling tsukishima why.

he’s in his room trying to study for his maths test when he puts his pen down and decides it’s not working. he can’t concentrate properly and the numbers refuse to cooperate in his head.

most of the time, tsukishima lets his problems work themselves out. he’s not the type to run after his issues with a pitchfork; tsukishima likes to use his energy conservatively and not overextend himself. it’s the approach he’s been taking to yamaguchi’s unusual non-attendance, but it seems to have reached a point where tsukishima can’t stay passive much longer. the space it’s occupying in his brain is increasing in size with every passing day and tsukishima is finding it hard to function.

logically, he weighs his options. 

he wants to know what’s wrong with yamaguchi, and a part of him worries if he’s okay. hinata and the others have wondered if yamaguchi was secretly dying, but tsukishima is a rational person so he mocked their dumb dramatics. (who would jump to that conclusion and actually believe it?) however, tsukishima may be having a concerning lapse in judgement of himself, because shit, what if yamaguchi actually _was_ dying?

he can’t believe he’s genuinely entertaining these thoughts—yamaguchi wouldn’t secretly die. if he was going to die, he’d tell them about it because he’s open like that. he wouldn’t want his friends to be shocked and he wouldn’t want to leave them in the dark… right? he’d tell tsukishima first, wouldn’t he? they’d known each other for more than half a decade at this point and they’d gone through a large portion of their formative years together. tsukishima isn’t one for mushy and sappy things—that’s more yamaguchi’s taste—but he feels like yamaguchi not telling him first if he was dying would invalidate some unspoken law of friendship.

he leans back in his desk chair and blinks at the ceiling, squinting his eyes against the brightness of his light.

he could text and ask. his phone sits next to his hand and they have each other’s numbers saved, even if they aren’t used so much. they don’t really text often; they see each other every day, so it’s not like they need to. besides, it’s not like they’re the most talkative friends either. yamaguchi would likely see his text quickly by virtue of tsukishima texting him being a rarity in itself. he’d be sure to get an answer.

he could call. it was more direct than texting and it’d be unlikely that yamaguchi would miss it. calling had the added effect of being more sudden, more prompt. he would get an answer then and there.

or he could physically go to yamaguchi’s house and ask him in person. he’d be able to ascertain yamaguchi’s condition with his own eyes. the other two options lacked that factor, to their detriment. 

if over text or a call yamaguchi told him he was fine, tsukishima would drop the issue. but there was a surety that existed in being able to see for himself that yamaguchi was fine if he went in person.

tsukishima’s not so sure why he wants this. to know with clarity that yamaguchi is perfectly in good health, or at least that it’s just a particularly long lasting bug or flu that hasn’t hurt him more than resigning him to sleeping most of the day away. it’s just—he hasn’t seen yamaguchi in almost a week. tsukishima would throttle anyone who said he missed his best friend, but truthfully, tsukishima may have.

he checks his phone: it’s not late. 

the sun is gradually beginning to lower itself under the wave of the horizon outside his window, and tsukishima slips out of his room to put on his shoes. the air is cool on his face and he ambles in the direction of yamaguchi’s house. it’s easy walking there when the steps are like muscle memory embedded in his legs.

some short time later, with the brush of the leaves and slight breeze on his face, tsukishima stops in front of yamaguchi’s door. his brain catches up to him and he realises he didn’t plan this part. his luck is either miraculous or abysmal, he decides, when the door opens anyway and yamaguchi’s mother startles.

“tsukishima-kun?”

inclining his head, tsukishima says, “yamaguchi-san. i’m sorry for the sudden visit, but i wanted to see how tadashi was doing.”

she smiles at him and it’s weary at the edges. she looks tired and tsukishima’s concern jumps. “ah, of course. tadashi-kun is… he’s in his room. i’m heading out now but i’ll be back later, so have tadashi-kun message me if you want to stay for dinner, kei-kun.”

“thank you, yamaguchi-san.” he steps to the side when yamaguchi’s mother leaves and carefully toes off his shoes in the entrance, muttering “pardon the intrusion.”

tsukishima knocks on yamaguchi’s door and waits. it doesn’t take long for yamaguchi to call out a quiet, ‘come in,’ and the room is dark when he enters. the curtains are firmly shut and tsukishima closes the door behind him when he ventures further in, spotting an odd lump on yamaguchi’s bed under the covers.

“hey,” he says, softer than usual.

a messy mop of hair peeks above the covers and even in the shadows, tsukishima can make out the redness surrounding yamaguchi’s eyes.

“tsukki? what”—yamaguchi shuffles around under the duvet and re-emerges with a messier bedhead—“turn on the light. what are you doing here?”

tsukishima flips the lightswitch and watches as the room illuminates. yamaguchi’s skin is paler than normal and his freckles are more prominent, dark spots against his pallid face. his pyjamas are rumpled and his nose is rubbed raw. “you haven’t turned up to school in a while. i was wondering if you’d died.”

yamaguchi grins a little, but like his mother’s, it seems fatigued. “i knew you cared after all.”

averting his eyes, tsukishima scoffs and says nothing. yamaguchi titters.

“but really, tsukki,” yamaguchi starts again, “you could’ve just texted or something.”

tsukishima notes that he seems unnaturally dismissive. “no, i had to see if you were dying for myself.”

“well, i’m here and in one piece,” he answers. “i’ll be back at school soon, so no need to worry anymore.”

tsukishima stares at yamaguchi. he watches the motion of his face, the unsure movements of his hands. from his place at the door, tsukishima can’t see it all in detail, but he can see enough. “what’s wrong, yamaguchi?”

yamaguchi jolts, like he expected tsukishima to take the dismissal and leave. he looks down at his hands in his lap and tsukishima watches him fiddle with his fingers. yamaguchi laughs it off. “it’s just a silly flu.”

he recalls thinking to himself that he’d drop it if yamaguchi told him he was fine, but now that tsukishima is here—”it’s not.”

“i think i’d know if i were sick, tsukki.”

“there’s something else.”

“there isn’t. just stop worrying and go back home, okay?”

tsukishima didn’t expect to come here to argue with yamaguchi, but he can’t go home without an answer when he knows yamaguchi is hiding something. something that casts sadness over his eyes like a thin veil, that makes his words taper off with hesitance and reluctance, that makes yamaguchi curl into himself when he’s talking to tsukishima. yamaguchi has known tsukishima for years and grew out of being self-conscious around him some months after they became friends when yamaguchi realised how much he liked dinosaurs.

“your mum offered me to stay for dinner,” is what tsukishima ends up saying.

yamaguchi blinks, caught off guard. “she did?”

tsukishima takes a step towards yamaguchi. “what’s really wrong, yamaguchi?” he makes sure to look yamaguchi in the eye, watching for the shutters that close over.

they stare at each other, tsukishima searching and yamaguchi hiding, until yamaguchi breaks and drags his gaze away. “it’s nothing big, tsukki. you really don’t need to worry about it. it’s fine.”

“that’s not what it looks like.”

yamaguchi’s hands grip his duvet and he bites his lip. “it’s fine,” he says. he exhales and tsukishima hears a soft wood chime, an airy caress of wind. he doesn’t expect yamaguchi’s eyes to widen and for him to frantically turn away, scrubbing at his face.

“yamaguchi?” tsukishima’s steps are hesitant as he approaches.

“don’t—don’t come close,” yamaguchi says, though it’s muffled by his hand.

despite yamaguchi’s best efforts, tears escape down his face and land on his bed. tsukishima doesn’t think much about it; he’s more concerned with why yamaguchi is crying. but the sound of wood chimes doesn’t stop and tsukishima looks down to see small stars trickling down yamaguchi’s arms and forming a pile beneath him.

“what?” tsukishima’s frozen. he’s never seen anything like it before.

“just go,” yamaguchi whispers, face red and hands covered in colourful stars. they look like charms as they spill from his eyes.

“i’m not—what do you need, yamaguchi?” tsukishima’s hands twitch by his side, desperate to help.

yamaguchi looks like he wants to protest it, but when he sees tsukishima, he just wipes more stars from his eyes and says softly, “you can sit on the bed. just—just be here.”

tsukishima awkwardly hovers, taking a seat on the edge. he’s been in yamaguchi’s room and sat on his bed plenty of times, but somehow this feels more intimate and tsukishima doesn’t really know what ‘just be here’ constitutes. 

hesitantly, he moves closer to yamaguchi and rests his hand on his back. yamaguchi shuffles nearer to him and before tsukishima can process what’s happening, yamaguchi is nestling himself into tsukishima and crying openly. tsukishima stiffens momentarily but his hand finds its way into yamaguchi’s hair and he’s running his fingers through it as yamaguchi trembles.

tsukishima thinks yamaguchi cries enough colourful stars to make a new galaxy by the time he stops and disentangles himself from tsukishima.

leaning over to his bedside table, tsukishima takes some tissues out and hands them to yamaguchi. his shirt feels unpleasantly warm, but tsukishima pushes it out of his mind.

“oh god,” yamaguchi splutters as he realises what’s just happened. “tsukki, i’m—i’m so sorry. i didn’t mean to—”

“it’s fine, yamaguchi,” tsukishima interrupts him. “are you—okay?”

yamaguchi wipes his face with the tissues and hides his face in his hands. “y-yeah. i’m sorry if i made you uncomfortable.”

“i said it’s fine. just…” tsukishima rolls the thoughts around in his head. “what was that?”

sheepish, yamaguchi’s hand goes to the back of his neck. “i think it’s something called star tear disease. my mum’s been looking stuff up about it.”

“and it started… last week?”

“yeah,” yamaguchi sighs as though the weight of it bears heavily on his shoulders. “it was worse starting out. i couldn’t stop leaving stars everywhere and it seemed like they just came out of…” he glances up at tsukishima and then turns away. “nowhere.” his voice is barely louder than the silence and tsukishima struggles to catch it.

“does it hurt?”

yamaguchi takes a moment to answer. “...no,” he eventually says. “it’s just really inconvenient,” he laughs lightly. he doesn’t meet tsukishima’s eyes.

“oh,” tsukishima says. “well, that’s something good, at least.”

“it’s not really that bad,” yamaguchi says. “the stars fade away after a while, but they’re kind of pretty.”

when they fell and blended with yamaguchi’s freckles, tsukishima thought he glimpsed a part of the universe. a fleeting thought flits through his mind: ‘pretty’ doesn’t begin to cover what tsukishima had seen.

“how long does it take to recover?” tsukishima asks. “if you miss any more practice, at this rate you’ll be off the team.”

yamaguchi seems to blanch. he swallows uneasily. “i don’t know much about it. it seems kind of rare, i think.

“about practice, it’ll be fine. i’ll go back to school tomorrow or the day after. i don’t plan on missing any more.”

tsukishima is doubtful that it’ll be that fine, especially if yamaguchi doesn’t know how long he’ll take to recover. they have a practice match coming up soon and yamaguchi’s already missed a week of practising their new formations. but, “you can study our new patterns while you’re at home. i’ll ask coach if i can record some stuff to show you.”

yamaguchi seems to brighten. “that would be great, tsukki!”

despite himself, tsukishima finds it lifts something he didn’t know was resting on him. a small smile creeps on his face. 

it seems his worries weren’t for much, even if this ‘star tears disease’ is unknown and unfamiliar. yamaguchi seems okay, and that’s enough for tsukishima.

(the memory is bittersweet. hindsight is piercingly clear, and it stings.)

it’s tsukishima’s fourth time hearing about ‘star tears disease’ that he learns its cause.

months after the first time, tsukishima discovers the festering ball of feelings in his chest that seems to spark every time yamaguchi does something. he realises it’s probably always been there, but tsukishima is oddly skilled at ignoring it. only recently has he taken notice of it and recognised it for what it is.

thinking his best friend is pretty and wanting to kiss him, take care of him and spend the rest of his life with him isn’t very platonic. who would’ve thought?

however, even if tsukishima has acknowledged its existence, that doesn’t mean he has to do anything about it. in fact, he’d rather not, though sometimes he gets carried away with his dreams of loving yamaguchi and being loved in return. yamaguchi doesn’t like him that way, so tsukishima is content to have them stay as dreams.

despite him saying that, tsukishima finds himself taking what he can get. maybe it’s selfish or cruel, but yamaguchi turning to him for comfort is something tsukishima lets himself indulge in.

since that moment when yamaguchi had sought physical comfort from tsukishima, the words ‘just be here’ echoing from him, the boundaries between them have blurred. tsukishima’s not naturally a touchy person, but yamaguchi’s different. 

it’s not a drastic difference; tsukishima doesn’t immediately want to drape himself over yamaguchi and become atomically bonded. but if he doesn’t object to yamaguchi leaning into him more, or their hands brushing more often, or when his hand ends up in yamaguchi’s hair sometimes—well, tsukishima doesn’t think about it too hard.

especially when yamaguchi is muffling his sobs, andromeda dripping from his eyes, tsukishima doesn’t think twice about threading his fingers into his dark hair and pulling him close.

tsukishima thinks back to when he thought yamaguchi’s star tears disease wasn’t so much of a problem. months down the line, it persisted. yamaguchi had assured him time and time again that it didn’t hurt, but sitting here in the dark of yamaguchi’s room, yamaguchi pressed into his chest as cries seeped from his dry mouth, the sound of wind chimes filling the silence, tsukishima can’t imagine it not hurting.

the stars flow easily from yamaguchi’s eyes and his freckles glow in their light. tsukishima doesn’t think they hurt when they fall, but yamaguchi being left like this, emotionally drained and tired so often—how could it not hurt?

he doesn’t know why or how this is still happening. he understands little about the disease, even as he tried to search the internet for information himself after yamaguchi told him about the tears not subsiding. he wishes he knew the cause, or some way to alleviate it.

it aches to watch yamaguchi be torn apart by the galaxies trying to force their way out of his eyes, to watch him stumble out of his house in the morning, eyebags somehow deeper than before, steps heavy and uneven. it aches to sit next to him, to feel his body shake and be powerless to stop it, to helplessly look on while yamaguchi suffers.

the clusters of incandescent light are beautiful, but tsukishima knows they burn like nothing else.

“is there really no way to cure it?” tsukishima asks, one time after yamaguchi sniffles away the rest of his tears. his hand is heavy where it rests on yamaguchi’s back.

“i don’t know,” yamaguchi says. “i think… i saw one idea, but—it wouldn’t work.”

“what do you mean it wouldn’t work? have you tried it already?” tsukishima leans forward, his hand slipping off yamaguchi’s back.

“no, but… it just wouldn’t.” yamaguchi glances at tsukishima’s hand and edges off the bed. tsukishima pretends he doesn’t immediately miss yamaguchi’s warmth, because they’ve done this many times in their lives yet somehow, tsukishima never tires of it.

“how do you know? if you haven’t tried it, then—”

patting his face with a tissue, yamaguchi interrupts him. “it wouldn’t, tsukki. trust me. it wouldn’t work.”

“why? what even is it?”

“well, it directly involves the cause of the disease itself, but”—yamaguchi pauses and his back is turned to tsukishima from where he stands at his desk—“the cause is when you love someone and they don’t love you back.”

the words knock the air from tsukishima’s lungs. it feels like an inordinate amount of time passes before yamaguchi continues and tsukishima breaks from his daze to swallow around the heart in his mouth.

“one way to cure it would be for them to fall in love with you too.” yamaguchi inhales deeply. “but it won’t happen. so there’s no point in thinking about it, okay?” his laugh is bitter, even as he tries to make it light.

“who is it?” tsukishima dares to ask. he stares steadfastly at the hardwood floor of yamaguchi’s room; the wood patterns have never been more interesting to trace with his eyes. they’re easier to look at than to follow the slope of yamaguchi’s back and the way he’s slouched over.

yamaguchi doesn’t turn around. “it doesn’t matter. they don’t like me in that way.”

the phrasing makes tsukishima lift his head and he ignores how the room spins momentarily. “but they like you?”

yamaguchi tenses. “it doesn’t matter, tsukki. let’s just—not talk about it right now.”

even without prodding, tsukishima knows yamaguchi won’t budge on this. 

neither of them bring it up for the rest of the night, but tsukishima’s mind swirls with thoughts of yamaguchi being in love with someone, of how many months this has been going on, of not knowing who it could possibly be. a quiet voice in the back of his head audaciously hopes it’s him, but he smothers it. 

tsukishima won’t let himself believe in something so unlikely.

(in the end, it’s his downfall.)

it’s crazy.

unthinkable.

something tsukishima had only ever dreamed about.

and yet, it’s real. 

yamaguchi’s hand on the back of his neck is real; the way he pulls tsukishima close is real. his lips on tsukishima’s are so, so real, and tsukishima doesn’t know how to react.

yamaguchi laughs into the kiss, and tsukishima can’t help but smile too. he tastes the tears from yamaguchi’s eyes, but they aren’t star-shaped. when he looks at yamaguchi as he leans back, it’s not his tears that glow, but him. 

his grin is bright, effervescent and his eyes are curved into crescents and his freckles scrunch up with his ruddy cheeks, and tsukishima doesn’t think he could possibly be more in love.

it must show on his face, because yamaguchi giggles and pulls him close again.

“we’re so dumb, tsukki,” he breathes the words into tsukishima’s neck, and tsukishima can’t help but agree. “a year, a whole _year_ , we could’ve had this already.”

tsukishima would’ve quipped back with something, but his heart felt too full and all he could do was lean down and kiss yamaguchi again.

both of them having mutually unrequited love—the irony of it all. he wonders how it even happens, but his memories of the year gone by are clouded. his mind is empty, blank except for the image of yamaguchi before him, happy and joyous and jubilant, and tsukishima stops trying to think.

“but i guess it doesn’t matter about the past anymore. what matters is here and now.” yamaguchi looks at him. “does this mean we’re together?”

yamaguchi, with his freckles dotted over his cheeks like stars in a luminous universe, his eyes shining with delight, his toothy smile blinding. yamaguchi, the one tsukishima loves and would choose over and over again, even if it turned out that yamaguchi didn’t love him back. yamaguchi, who does love tsukishima, who has for the past year and a half to the point that his eyes cried stars and ripped apart galaxies, all because he was and is so in love with tsukishima.

“yeah,” tsukishima whispers. he repeats it as he hugs yamaguchi tight and counts the freckles as he dots them with kisses. “we are.”

he plants one last kiss on the curve of yamaguchi’s overwhelming smile.

tsukishima’s not the overly-dramatic type. he resents the thought of even being considered as such, but the cliche line slips its way into his mind despite it:

when did things start going wrong?

graduation is in a few weeks. tsukishima didn’t think he’d be overjoyed at the future and repeatedly thanking everyone for the three years, but he also didn’t think he’d be feeling like this either. he didn’t think there’d be something besides graduation that would affect him.

“i can’t do this right now, tsukki.” yamaguchi’s voice is quiet in the cold air of the night. he stands a few paces away from tsukishima, staring out into space. “i think… i think we just need some space away from each other.”

tsukishima knew this was coming eventually. he hates that he expected it, that he could tell where things were going. he just doesn’t know at what point they went from over the moon to—this.

“i’ve got offers from some universities and it’s a lot of stress, so…” yamaguchi turns to him, lips pursed and eyes tired. he hasn’t looked this weary since their first year, when stars had begun to trickle down the planes of his face. “it’s better that we just—take a breather.”

words get stuck in his throat, and tsukishima wants to say everything and nothing all at once. all that comes out is: “are you breaking up with me?” _was i not good enough, in the end?_

“i don’t _know_ , kei.” yamaguchi is strained as he says it, and he sounds like he’s pleading, voice thin and weak. “do we even have a relationship to break up anymore?”

distantly, tsukishima thinks if yamaguchi is asking that, then what is he proposing they take a breather from?

the wood under him feels cold in the spring temperature. they’re at tsukishima’s house again, because somehow tsukishima’s back garden, the back of his house, is where they go when words are heavy and the future is uncertain. 

the moon watching over them feels painful this time. it feels exposing, like the low moonlight highlights every fault in them, in their relationship. it’s not a bright spotlight, but it’s insidious, slowly crawling over every crack and break between them.

yamaguchi is desperate when he searches tsukishima’s gaze, looking for something to justify the last small flame they share, and tsukishima’s silence smothers the last of the embers. it fills tsukishima’s lungs too, stops the explanations he wants to let out, the promises of being better, the reassurances that yes, there’s still something worth saving; but the silence is guileful and it remains unseen to yamaguchi.

with the hands of silence tightening around tsukishima’s throat, he thinks offhandedly, maybe it’s better this way.

“okay,” yamaguchi whispers, brokenly. “i’ll—go. goodbye, tsukki.”

yamaguchi deserves better, tsukishima thinks, ice seeping into his bones. yamaguchi is worth more than what tsukishima can give him and it’s obvious. it’s clear as day, even in the dark of night, as he storms past tsukishima into the house and out the front door.

tsukishima was always too worried about whether or not he was enough for yamaguchi. it seems he has his answer, now.

tsukishima doesn’t know where it all started going wrong, but maybe it was obvious, looking back.

tsukishima loves yamaguchi with more than his whole heart. he loves him with the force that keeps planets and moons in orbit, with the force that holds the universe together, with the force that ties atoms together and makes reality tangible and existing. tsukishima loves yamaguchi so much that it scares him.

he loves yamaguchi so much so that he knows undeniably how good yamaguchi is. how much of an amazing person he is. how he deserves more than anything life could give.

yamaguchi still holds awe for life and living and being, and tsukishima has always only understood that when it comes to yamaguchi. tsukishima loves yamaguchi with the power of a million stars, but yamaguchi loves everything with the power of a billion.

yamaguchi burns bright, so bright, and tsukishima feels like he’s not enough.

he feels it so fiercely, but like all of his problems, he watches it passively. it eats at him, but tsukishima doesn’t know how to fix it. he can’t change who he fundamentally is, but at his core, he knows he isn’t right for yamaguchi. isn’t it selfish, then, to force yamaguchi to stay with him?

his heart clenches where it’s tightly hidden in his chest, and tsukishima knows he is selfish. it was just another reason he wasn’t worthy of yamaguchi.

but they’ve been by each other’s side for years and tsukishima admits in the safety of his mind that he doesn’t want to leave him yet, doesn’t want to have to learn how to live without him. he wants to hold on, just for a moment longer.

his mind conflicts with his actions, but tsukishima doesn’t notice, wrapped up in his introspection. he doesn’t realise that as he’s taken by his thoughts of not being good enough, he pulls away from yamaguchi.

but yamaguchi notices.

yamaguchi notices, and it’s the only thing he can see.

tsukishima sees nothing but his own fears, his own lack of worth.

yamaguchi trails away, and future-tsukishima is loathe to realise that he never saw that, either.

he misses so many things, how yamaguchi retreats into himself more, retracts from their shared space, how his voice loses its cheer over time and how even as yamaguchi gains captaincy on the volleyball team, his eyes dim more and more.

tsukishima misses these things, but his heart balloons with love even so, watching as yamaguchi takes them to nationals. the rational voice in his mind whispers, _despite everything_.

he only realises something is horribly, horribly wrong when he finds yamaguchi stifling tears one day, colourful, glimmering stars pooling beneath him on his pillow.

“yam—yamaguchi?” tsukishima stutters.

the fear in yamaguchi’s eyes when he looks up is like an arrow to tsukishima’s ribcage, and he feels the breath catch in his lungs.

“it’s not what you think it is, tsukki,” he says, scrubbing at his eyes. his voice is hoarse.

“what is it, then?” tsukishima manages to get out. his mind is a mess; confusion and hurt intertwine and he doesn’t know how to discern what he’s feeling.

“i still love you,” yamaguchi says and it sounds like it pains him. “i’m still in love with you.”

tsukishima barely catches it, but he hears the soft, ‘even if you aren’t,’ yamaguchi mutters after. it feels like glass shattering on his skin, cutting deep.

“what do you mean ‘even if i’m not’?” beyond the haze of his pain, tsukishima realises what’s happening. “of course i still—tadashi,” he says, walking over to yamaguchi. there’s hope in yamaguchi’s eyes that he tries to hide and it squeezes tight around tsukishima’s heart, but he powers through it. he wants to fix this, wants to make things better.

it’s his fault, after all, for making yamaguchi think he doesn’t love him anymore. 

_he deserves better_ echoes in his mind as his hands cup yamaguchi’s face. 

_he deserves someone who doesn’t hurt him like this_ is a shout in the tangle of his thoughts as he reassures yamaguchi he never stopped loving him. 

_he deserves someone who isn’t you_ fills his head as he presses a soft kiss to yamaguchi’s lips.

the thoughts are mere drops of water in his mind, but they build and build and build until they amass to oceans. holding yamaguchi close and feeling him wrap his arms around his torso, the roar of the waves dulls down to near silence, but they linger in the back of tsukishima’s mind. he hugs yamaguchi tighter and tries to block them out.

after that night, yamaguchi doesn’t cry any more star tears, and tsukishima vows to never let it happen again.

(but tsukishima can only see as far as the observable universe, and stars exist in every crevice of the galaxies.

it is indisputable that some will remain forever undiscovered.)

“why did you call me over?”

yamaguchi is gathering clothes and folding them in neat squares, seeming to loosely sort them by colour, though some are out of place. tsukishima waits by the door, shifting awkwardly and hoping it doesn’t show. 

when yamaguchi turns around and his face softens momentarily, tsukishima knows his hopes were for nothing.

“i just wanted to make things clear, i guess,” yamaguchi says. he’s standing in the middle of the room and tsukishima observes him with the mind of a man holding the last drops of water in his hands before it all slips away. 

his hair is still as fluffy as it was all those years ago, when they were ten and yamaguchi didn’t know who tsukishima was. he’s taller than he was in their first year, both of them having grown from confused teenagers to slightly less confused almost-adults. he stands straighter, nothing like the sheepish slouch he used to have. being the captain of a powerhouse team emboldened yamaguchi to be who tsukishima always knew he was.

tsukishima thinks that soon, this will be all that’s left of the yamaguchi he knows.

“before we go to university,” yamaguchi continues, unaware of the lifetime of memories flitting through tsukishima’s mind. “i think it needs to be said, just so we’re both on the same page. i know i said weeks ago that we were taking a break, but i don’t think there’s any way for this to work out anymore.”

both of them know it, tsukishima more than anyone. it still stings, and his inhale is sharp. “guess you really _are_ breaking up with me now,” he chuckles. it sounds weak even to his own ears.

yamaguchi’s too strong to crack now, having found his footing since their last talk like this. still, his smile is sad, uneasy at the edges, and he says quietly, “yeah. i guess so.”

“i’m sorry,” tsukishima says, just as softly. he blinks through the fog of tears.

“it’s okay, tsukki,” yamaguchi says. “i probably… i don’t think we’ll be seeing each other again, if not for a long time, so…”

his voice snakes around tsukishima’s lungs and grips tight, and tsukishima nods. “it was good. while—while we were happy.”

yamaguchi seems to blur at the edges in tsukishima’s vision. his words are crystal clear in the air. “it was. thanks for everything, tsukki.”

tsukishima turns to the door, both ready to leave and to hide the way tears drip down his cheeks. “good luck with your future, yamaguchi. i know you’ll do well.” 

he doesn’t wait for an answer and slips out the door, leaving yamaguchi behind. his mind fixates on the image of yamaguchi standing in his room, all evidence of him having lived there stripped and trapped in a suitcase lying open nearby as he packed the rest of his things away, ready to go to university and end this part of his life.

tsukishima lets go, lets yamaguchi tie this last loose end, and lets himself lay in his bed later that night, staring out the window to stargaze and map the constellations in the sky. he lets himself think of blush underneath stars, of orion and aquarius stretching across smiling cheeks, of freckles dancing along pale skin.

among the stars in the night, tsukishima spots a blinding dash of light. it’s dazzling, outshining everything else, and he realises it’s a shooting star. 

dully, he thinks he should make a wish, but the only thing that comes to mind is wishing he could try again with yamaguchi, and it’s with bitterness that he knows it’s impossible. he tries to think of something else, but when he looks back at the sky, the shooting star is gone, and he’s missed his chance.

it’s coincidental, he thinks. the star will land somewhere, burning out in the atmosphere as it rockets towards earth, and tsukishima has lost his chance to wish on it. it will sit in a crater of its own creation, slowly fizzling to nothing as the flames die out and the magic is lost.

eventually, it will cool down and become just another rock in the ground, but the damage will remain: the singed grass, the burnt ground, the insects crushed underneath.

tsukishima thinks the damage will remain too, of a wish made too late.

it was too late to wish to try again.

and tsukishima resents himself for it.

time ticks by and yamaguchi begins to fade into the ghost of a memory. before tsukishima realises, the day yamaguchi broke up with him becomes three years in the past.

he’s finishing his degree next year, and tsukishima finds that he’s managed to grow a life without yamaguchi.

somehow, it doesn’t affect him as much as he thought it would.

any other thoughts he has about yamaguchi are fleeting, and tsukishima clears his mind to focus on his lecturer.

it’s just another day, one of hundreds, and slowly, tsukishima learns to let his heart breathe.

when tsukishima gets the confirmation that he’s been signed onto the sendai frogs, the happiness he feels is overwhelming, even if it doesn’t show. he opens his contacts, finger hovering over the screen, before he realises what he’s doing.

tsukishima isn’t the kind of person to be quick to celebrate, nor is he the type to immediately tell someone else. so what is he doing with his phone open, yamaguchi’s contact on his screen and his thumb frozen over the call button?

he’d thought he’d left yamaguchi behind, thought he’d gotten over him, but yamaguchi still remains an exception to everything in tsukishima’s life.

part of him feels bitter, angry at himself because yamaguchi is just an old reminder of his mistakes, but the rest of him knows he doesn’t mean it. yamaguchi was so much more than that, and he knows, but it’s hard to remember the years before when he was his constant, an unyielding force tsukishima learned to grow around because of the foolish thought he’d always be there. how can he remember it when the memories are hidden, covered deep under red scar tissue in his mind?

he turns off his phone and leaves the sendai frogs letter on his desk, shouldering on his jacket and heading out the door of his dorm.

he doesn’t want to think about the past, about yamaguchi, about everything he should have and could have done, but didn’t. 

instead, he distracts himself from the thoughts with dim lights, the burn of a drink down his throat, and a stranger’s lips.

he doesn’t let himself pretend they belong to someone else.

they’re not young anymore.

yamaguchi has gone to university, is twenty-three years old and has a future ahead of him.

tsukishima is twenty-three and has a budding volleyball career alongside his job at the museum.

the days when they used to be close, when they used to know each other inside and out, when they could say they were two halves of a whole and not be lying—they’re gone, lost to the unforgiving jaws of the past.

the memories of those times remain locked away, imprisoned in glass cages for tsukishima to watch longingly. he may look, he may stare, he may wonder and ruminate and introspect, but he may never touch nor feel nor experience them again.

sometimes the desire to is suffocating. 

his hand reaches out, fingertips heavy on smooth glass. sometimes he thinks he would gladly risk the cut skin and broken knuckles, if it meant he could take yamaguchi’s soft hand in his once more and love him the way he deserved.

the thoughts were meant to stay in his head, metaphorical and elusive and intangible, but tsukishima blinks and stares through the glass of the museum display.

somehow, yamaguchi is there.

it shouldn’t be as shocking as it is, because sendai city museum is a public building and not exactly unknown. it’s not as though the doors specifically bar yamaguchi tadashi from ever stepping foot inside, but with the way tsukishima feels his heart stop, he wishes they did.

he wonders what yamaguchi’s doing here, as if he couldn’t just be here to appreciate the exhibitions like everyone else. tsukishima feels estranged from reality; it feels like space and time bends to create this scene just to spite him. to show him what he let go of, what he missed.

tsukishima has crafted a life for himself minus yamaguchi, but seeing him again makes him feel like it never happened. seeing his face takes tsukishima’s feet back to all those years ago, standing in yamaguchi’s room, watching as he finally broke it off, attempting to sort his clothes by colour as he packed them away but struggling, because the tears tsukishima caused him were painful enough to rip the life from yamaguchi’s eyes and take the hues from his world. 

yet, here yamaguchi is, in arguably one of their more colourful exhibits at the museum, staring at the artefacts and descriptions with awe and amazement, a look tsukishima hasn’t seen in a long, long time.

it feels bitter in his mouth, even as he realises yamaguchi must have recovered. it’s a good thing, and it means tsukishima has become cemented in the past.

it’s a good thing, but it doesn’t feel good.

not when he’s still stuck there, having fooled himself into thinking he was over yamaguchi. tsukishima didn’t think it would be this easy to be reminded that he never did get over him, and it stings.

he inhales deeply and turns, telling himself that yamaguchi is just another visitor and he should do his job and walk away. but when he starts to, he spots someone at yamaguchi’s side and his legs automatically stop.

tsukishima feels rooted to where he stands, and he’s never hated how long seconds and minutes feel until now.

he hates how time forces itself into his head and makes him watch in excruciating slowness as yamaguchi smiles and laughs with the person next to him. he hates how he’s frozen, how he’s forced to come to the realisation in full detail that yamaguchi has someone new, and that their hands are tightly held together between them. 

what he hates more is how his eyes can’t seem to look away from the way yamaguchi’s freckles stretch across his cheeks as he laughs without restraint. the sight makes something green and vile rear its ugly head in his chest and tsukishima wants to look away, but he can’t.

he wants to leave and go back to his job and forget what he sees, pretend he never saw it to begin with.

but his feet remain unmoving and tsukishima wants to spit out the bile rising in his throat.

he wants to scrub his mind clean until it bleeds. he wants to get rid of the barbed thoughts when he sees the genuine happiness on yamaguchi’s face and all he can think is ‘why were you never that happy with me?’

his breath feels stuck in his lungs and he wants nothing more than to stop thinking but once he acknowledges one, the questions don’t stop. he’s trapped in space and he feels the monster devour him, poisonous and all-encompassing, like he’s being sucked into a black hole.

he can’t help it when he watches yamaguchi’s eyes, the way they look bright and happy and clear, lively in a manner tsukishima hasn’t seen before, and it’s with a jolt that he realises most of all, he looks like—

like he hasn’t been crying.

it’s a punch in the gut and tsukishima wants so desperately to take the thought back. 

this yamaguchi looks unfamiliar to him, and the sudden understanding has tsukishima reeling. he’d never noticed, but seeing yamaguchi like this, it’s with a nauseating sense of awareness that he realises he’d become more used to seeing yamaguchi exhausted and tired, so much so that this sight of yamaguchi existing happily is foreign, as though it’s a rediscovered relic of the past.

it’s like this that tsukishima begins to understand. 

yamaguchi has moved on; he’s found someone better, someone who loves him openly and clearly. someone who won’t mistreat him or neglect him or let him feel so unloved as to believe it was one-sided, even in their _relationship_.

yamaguchi has moved on, and he’s better off for it. he’s happier than he ever was with tsukishima.

with spite, he thinks to himself, that’s not so hard.

he only manages to unlatch his feet from the ground and move when yamaguchi and his new partner leave to go to the next room.

tsukishima descends to the lower floors in hopes of avoiding them for the rest of their visit but it doesn’t make much of a difference. it’s like a dam has been broken and all the feelings he’d shoved into a corner of his mind have been reawakened. 

even as he explains a specific display to a tour guide, directs people to the exhibits they want to see, helps a lost group of friends find each other, his mind never strays from yamaguchi and the fact that he looked good—not just physically, but as though he was glowing again, observing the world like everything was deserving of awe and wonder.

tsukishima wonders when he lost that look in his eyes.

later, as he gets ready to go home, being done with work for the day, he wishes he didn’t feel so bitter about yamaguchi. about him being content and happy and untroubled.

(about him having done the right thing and leaving.)

but tsukishima isn’t as good as he wishes he was.

the feelings stay in his heart, and he can’t forget.

the past exists behind them, and between them there’s a gap. it’s wide, spanning years of distance where their hands once met. 

yamaguchi, at one end, and tsukishima, the other.

(because that’s what tsukishima is now, really—the other.)

with yamaguchi having separated from the road they both once walked, tsukishima thinks it’s fallacious to imagine the chasm between them as a simple ravine.

in truth, tsukishima pictures it as standing at the edge of a lifetime of space that only seems to grow. he’s pushed further away, even as he continues to orbit around the star in the centre of the galaxy. there is an undeniable force keeping him stuck in rotation, watching with an increasing, foreboding sense of distance, as yamaguchi turns out to love someone new, someone who isn’t him.

tsukishima exists on the fringes of that reality, floating among space and dust and miniscule particles that fill his lungs like fine sand, contorting his sorrowful breathing into one of choked gasps. he’s alone at the precipice of the universe, where planets fall to nothing and their moons blend into darkness.

he’s alone, reaching out for a star whose orbit he’s slowly being pulled from.

his heart compels him to draw closer, but loss is vicious and the void waiting behind him is insatiable.

sometimes, tsukishima thinks, love is not enough.

even as his heart tightens and tightens and tightens, even as his mind is overcome by desperate, longing cries—

even as his mind screams: _i love him_.

love is not enough.

it’s this notion—something he knows intimately—that strikes in tsukishima’s mind now, where he sits at home, his orbit broken. he closes his eyes and breathes slowly, inhaling the scent of brown coffee, and lets himself be dragged down into a world of colourless black and white.

the stars that trail down his cheeks are burning hot.

he knows when he opens his eyes again, the hues of his walls will be lost on him, and the colours in his life will be gone. instead, they will be locked away in the stars that fall on his chest, swirling behind incandescent glass like trapped nebulae.

it’s not guaranteed that these tears will take his colours, but tsukishima knows. he knows the pain that grips his heart, the suffocating hands that live around his throat, the existence of the thoughts in the back of his mind that never leave. 

his body is frozen, left adrift in the vast loneliness of unknown space, and _he knows_.

as tsukishima cries, his heartbreak echos in the cold air; it’s soft, liquid taps against a steady floor, a silent heartbeat pitter-pattering in an empty room, a waning sound petering out as light ebbs away behind his eyelids, slowly vanishing.

if yamaguchi were to ever gaze at the edge of the universe revolving around him, he might notice the specks of colourful light begin to dwindle.

if yamaguchi were to ever glance over his shoulder, look back even once, he might notice the stars that die and fade and crumble to nothing.

if yamaguchi were to take his eyes away from his lover for just one moment, he might notice; he might see. he might be made aware of the boiling anguish pouring from cold eyes and falling into colder hands.

if—

_if only,_

tsukishima thinks.

_if only he still loved me._

**Author's Note:**

> technically this was my second ever fic that wasn't like  
> 3 words long  
> but the other one im still wrITING AND IT'S BEEN LIKE THREE MONTHS  
> aiwoefjdskjdlasf  
> ok now this is done i can go study and cry bc my exams are this week


End file.
